63 MPGs – just not for us…

Eric Peters Autos ^ | February 3, 2011 | Eric Peters

[MulberryDraw]

The new Mini Cooper Countryman can get 63 MPGs on the highway – just not on our highways.

Like so many other high-mileage, diesel-powered vehicles, it’s not available in the United States. Instead we get gas-electric turkeys like the Toyota Prius hybrid – which maxes out at 48 MPGs on the highway. If you drive it at around 47 MPH in the left lane with your turn signal blinking… .

[Secret Agent Man]

Stop wasting extra gas making ethanol and adding to good unleaded gas, and start making more clean diesel and make cars with diesel engines (or bring them over) that get really good mileage.

[Sequoyah101]

Much discussed by many. CARB (California Air Resources Board) is the biggest problem and they are egged on by EPA.

Every country in the world uses diesel vehicles but the US and all because Calif. is such a big market and CARB denies the use of diesels.

A Subaru Outback in the UK will get in the 40’s (US gallons per US mile), the BMW diesel screams and gets great mileage. You can import parts and in some states re-engine to a JDM diesel on your own and have a 4WD pickup project that gets 30 mpg.

Dream on, you can’t have better fuel economy because EPA and CARB say you can’t.

[2ndDivisionVet]

[Secret Agent Man]

Craigslist, you might find another one.

[Delta 21]

Yeah, but its NOT a Prius.

[stefanbatory]

there’s a feller in GA who has devised a way to put them into an F-150. he has several videos of his creation on youtube..i think he sells plans to illustrate how exactly to do it...

[SoftwareDeveloper]

I have a 2010 Prius and love it. In the summer, I have gotten as high as 65 mpg and that is on the highway averaging over 50 mph. In the winter (South Dakota) I am getting just over 40 except for longer trips.

[Richard Kimball]

FWIW, I get over 50,000 miles out of a set of tires with a few simple tricks. One is, like you said, don't accelerate quickly from a light. One of the big things though is that I take my foot off the gas about a half block from a red light. I can coast almost to a stop and just have to tap the brake, but usually the light turns green and I can just go back to normal speed without ever braking. I'm still on the original discs and drums on a full size Chevy pickup with over 100,000 miles. Course that only works in relatively light traffic. Most cars also have a sweet spot where they get the best mileage. Above or below it's worse.

I ended up using a Geo Metro once as a rental car, and that 60 mpg rating went down to about 35 at 70 mph. Not to mention it felt like I was riding a sewing machine.

[LexRex in TN]

I had a 1980 VW Rabbit diesel that got around 45 mpg in the city and 55 mpg on the highway. Loud as all get out, but it had pretty good pick up and it was not painful at all to fill it up!!

[kalee]

We had a diesel VW Rabbit too. Great little car, we needed something bigger when child #2 came along, so got a Jetta.

[mo]

All you need to know about taxes and MPG...right here..

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2007/05/gasoline-taxes.html

[OneWingedShark]

>1) The Imperial gallon is 20% larger than the US gallon. That means in US gallons, this vehicle would get a rating of 53 mpg.

Did they use the Imperial Gallon in the testing/converting though? England has been on the metric system (meters and ‘litres’) for a good while now and, IIRC, about the only thing using Imperial Gallons is beer-brewing — it is actually quite probable the MPG used *is* miles per US gallon.

[smokingfrog]

What’s a haybine?

[reg45]

The problem is that Joe Isuzu is in charge of the EPA, and the rest of the government for that matter.

[Jet Jaguar]

[Kolokotronis]

"For the money that one would spend on the idiotic Chevy Volt, a car buyer could have higher MPG’s with a Audi A4."

That may very well be true. Even with the tax credit, the Volt doesn't seem to make financial sense but the author wasn't lying about a Chevy Volt. Just like one doesn't get to make up one's own facts, one doesn't get to make up one's own reality, at least not if one wants to be taken seriously, by serious people about serious issues. Unfortunately, there is an increasingly large segment of the right, especially the right in media, which feels at least as free to make up alternate, often absurd, realities as the left does. I suspect it is about viewers/readers and thus money, but whatever its purpose, it does rational conservatism no favor.

[OneWingedShark]

>What’s a haybine?

Looks like a ‘combine’ specifically designed for hay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haybine

[smokingfrog]

Thanks.

It doesn’t appear to be street legal.

[meyer]

Government is the problem 90% of the time. The green commies don’t want successful solutions like the Diesel because they are highly vested in their croney companies like GE that stand to capitalize on the forced use of electric vehicles in the US.

[Kolokotronis]

"I have a 2010 Prius and love it. In the summer, I have gotten as high as 65 mpg and that is on the highway averaging over 50 mph. In the winter (South Dakota) I am getting just over 40 except for longer trips."

I've heard the third generation 2010s are better than the second generation ones. But I've had a similar experience with my 2009, as high as 63 mpg in the summer and over 40 mpg once it's warmed up commuting 11 miles to the office at -8 to 0 degrees this winter. When the lease is up in 11 months, I'll get another one and I may get rid of the AWD Buick I've got and get another Prius for She Who Must Be Obeyed!